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Avoid Long Hierarchical Menus

If you right-click (or Control-click) on some item, such as a file in the Finder, and one of the sub-menus has many options (Open With is a frequent culprit), it may take several seconds to open, even on a fast machine, which is annoying if you did not actually want that sub-menu.

The trick is to not pull the cursor through the menu, but in a curve around it, so the cursor does not touch any menu items until lower on the list where you wanted to go.

ExtraBITS for 26 April 2010

While recovering from last week's massive TidBITS issue and responding to oodles of amazingly kind comments from readers, we didn't do much reading other than following the Gizmodo stolen iPhone prototype story, which Andy Ihnatko and Scott Adams did a good job of summarizing. Adam also shared some stories from his early Mac days with MacTech Magazine, and we watched as Israel banned the iPad, took flak, and lifted the ban last weekend.

Dilbert Weighs in on Gizmodo Stolen iPhone Prototype -- Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has released two comic strips that deftly summarize the entire Gizmodo stolen iPhone prototype story, with the addition of Wally. Since the story will undoubtedly be old by the time these could hit newspapers (there's a one-month lag time, apparently), Adams decided not to submit them.

Time Magazine Finds No Reason for Israel's iPad Ban -- Time Magazine finds no credible reason for the blockage of iPads into Israel, but notes that the sole authorized Apple importer, iDigital, is owned by the son of Israel's president. Time talked to wireless experts, the ministry of communications, and others, and the explanations are quite thin. The ministry appears to be relying on the word of iDigital, rather than, say, testing or calling up Apple, on whether the iPad meets the European standards that Israel follows. The ban was lifted over the
weekend.

Andy Ihnatko Analyzes the Gizmodo Stolen iPhone Story -- Apple's famous secrecy has resulted in a salacious story of a prototype iPhone being lost, found, purchased by a blog, connected with a specific engineer, and (presumably) returned to Apple. There's no real news involved - the confirmed features were commonly expected and it's unknown whether the next iPhone will use this prototype's industrial design. Either way, it's not actionable information until Apple actually releases the next iPhone, probably in June or July. If you're wondering what all the fuss is about, Andy Ihnatko's Chicago
Sun-Times column has the best summary we've seen.

Adam Shares Pre-TidBITS Mac Stories with MacTech -- TidBITS isn't the only Mac publication that's been around for a long time, and the venerable MacTech Magazine is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. To help them commemorate the occasion, Adam reached far back into the depths of time - well before TidBITS! - for some of his most-cherished stories of Mac hacking and usage in the days of the Mac Plus and SE.